


What was the word again?

by ginnyred



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 13:39:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16306190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginnyred/pseuds/ginnyred
Summary: There were things that just couldn't be said while feeding the ducks in St. James's Park, or while dining out at the Ritz.





	What was the word again?

There were things that just couldn't be said while feeding the ducks in St. James's Park, or while dining out at the Ritz.

That thing between them – within them? It was hard to place too – but that _thing_ , the one they felt The Day The World Decided It Didn't Fancy Ending After All.

That thing.

They had been ready to face him – _Him!_ Lucifer, the Morning Star, the Light Bringer, the Fallen Angel, the Devil, Satan, The King of Hell: you get the picture – that's when they felt it. It was like power, of folly, or electricity. It was defiance and fire and purpose. It was their wings spread out, Aziraphale's flaming sword, and Crowley's ridiculous tire iron.

It was the two of them. No disguises. No excuses. No “following orders”. Just them.

And that _shifted_ something between them – within them? They both felt it.

True, _He_ didn't show and thank Go- Sat- well, thank _Adam_ he didn't. But they had been ready for Him all the same. And that did something to them, that thing they shared The Day The World Did Not End. It did something to their core, to their understanding of themselves and the other. It did something to them, as a unit.

Wasn't that mad. _Them, as a unit!_

But the thing was, it sort of wasn't. They could feel that it wasn't, they could grasp at the truth of it, but it appeared to be beyond anyone's words or maybe even thoughts.

_What was the word again?_

But you see how it wasn't the sort of thing that could be discussed while feeding the ducks or eating _foie gras_ – which was great, by the way, as long as you didn't think about the ducks while eating it. Most likely, it wasn't the sort of thing that could be _discussed_ full stop.

Not that they didn't want to.

They did. Kinda. Aziraphale couldn't help but feel that they sort of _had to_ – in a way.

But how?

*

“It's Chianti. They make it on these enchanting hills in the middle of-”

Crowley snorted.

“Don't try condescending with me, it doesn't work. I know what Chianti is. I invented it.”

“You invented it? But it's not- _Why?_ ”

Crowley shrugged.

“Gluttony?”

Aziraphale smiled that secretly fond smile of his that meant _I don't believe a word you say, you snake._

“Then I applaud you, dear boy,” he poured two glasses of the rich red wine and raised his. “To a job well done!”

Crowley bowed his head graciously, raised his own glass, and they drank.

A lot.

Way too much.

Because, see, if the problem was that rational thinking got in the way of whatever it was they felt they had to say – and Aziraphale believed that was the case – then... then irrational thinking might help.

… _a bit?_ Aziraphale was trying not to think that his masterplan implied that alcohol was a solution.

He drank some more – for courage. To forget. He didn't even know.

“Crowley?” he tried at last.

“Mh?”

Crowley was sprawled on Aziraphale's sofa in the back of the shop. Mouth open, sunglasses on the tip of his nose, glass of wine dangerously balanced between his thumb and index finger. Drunk beyond this world and the next.

“Crowley, do you ever feel like that day in Tadfield... changed stuff? Not... _stuff_ , of course it changed stuff, but I mean that it changed... you? Who you are?”

“Whadyahmeembydah”

“Come again?”

“Wha-what do you mean... by that?” Crowley tried to sit upright but his body didn't seem to agree with him and he fell back down onto the cushions, spilling red wine all over the sofa. He didn't even notice. “Cha-changed me?”

Aziraphale was too drunk to miracle the stain away, so he just took Crowley's glass from his hand and put it back on the table. He had had enough, surely.

“You know... Do you ever feel different now? Strange? Not bad strange.”

“Good sssssssstrange?”

“Maybe. Just strange. But it feels right.”

“D-do you feel sssssstrange?”

“Sometimes.”

Crowley blinked three times rapidly.

It was like a part of him was trying to focus on Aziraphale and the conversation they were having, but they kept escaping him somehow. Like water and ducks and... _whatever_ , he was too tired.

“Uh?” was all he could manage.

“It's just,” Aziraphale wished he could sober up now, but the whole point of the experiment was that he couldn't be sober for this. He wasn't as far gone as Crowley though, so, yeah. “I feel like that day changed something. You, me, Earth, the Arrangement... Heaven and Hell, too. The way we see them at least. Everything. It feels like... like we are more alone now. And... and less alone at the same time. In a way. A really weird way. I can't really say how-”

_What was the word again?_

“What do you think? Do you feel this? Do you think we've changed? Or has everything else changed? Are we- Crowley? _Crowley?_ ”

Crowley was asleep.

He looked really peaceful too, if somewhat raggedy. Crowley's jacket, one sleeve inside out, was being used as half a blanket, and his hair was all over the place, mostly in his face, but his breathing was deep and steady. Peaceful.

Aziraphale sighed and let himself fall back onto the cushions. He couldn't wake Crowley now: not for this, not when he didn't even know what he wanted to say to him. His masterplan had failed to take into account Crowley's drunken naps.

 _Typical_ , thought Aziraphale with some fondness, looking down at Crowley's sleeping figure. _That time in Rome in 64 AD had taught him nothing after all._

*

The truth was, Crowley was no stranger to the feeling that the Not-Apocalypse had been a turning point of some kind. A turning point for what, it was hard to say, but it had been.

Things felt different now.

Crowley wasn't averse to... talking about it _per se_. He just didn't want to be the one _doing_ the talking. Aziraphale was great at explaining stuff after all. That was His Thing. Crowley's feelings didn't need to be part of the conversation, did they?

Still, he wanted to know, he had to be sure that Aziraphale felt it too.

(Crowley had a... well, a _feeling_ – ha! – that Aziraphale had tried to talk to him about this before. He remembered questions... too many questions. _Ugh_. Lots of questions, and then things got blurry, hazy, and incredibly... _comfortable_. Crowley remembered nothing else.)

Which is exactly how they ended up... here.

“You said we were testing one of your creations!”

“Indeed.”

“ _This_ is one of your creations?!”

“Diabolical, eh?”

Aziraphale gulped visibly.

They were sitting in the first car. The first loop of the rollercoaster was far enough that it looked almost unreal, like someone else's problem. But of course Aziraphale knew better.

“... truly,” he said. He clasped the metal bar in front of him, hard, and said nothing else.

 _This wasn't how this was supposed go._ Crowley coughed briefly to clear his voice and attempted nonchalance.

“Any last words before it's too late?”

“I hate you.”

“... right. Nothing else?”

“I really, _really_ hate yOOooooOOOOOOOOOOuuuuUUUUUUUU-”

… and with that they were off.

Now, the rollercoaster being, as it was, a diabolical creation, it was famous for a fenomenal drop towards the end of the track. And the drop itself being diabolical, the cars were programmed – someone would say cursed – to slow down and then stop completely before the big drop.

It lasted five seconds.

Just so you could look down and regret it immediately afterwards.

Just so you could look Death – well, okay, Discorporation – right in the eye and manage to say the things you had never thought yourself capable of saying. Or even thinking.

_What was the word again?_

They had five seconds to say them.

“Crowley?”

Crowley smiled. There it went. He was a genius.

“Yes, Aziraphale?”

“ _Fuck. You._ ”

… right, maybe not.

In related news, it took Crowley three (3) dinners at the Ritz and one (1) first edition of John Milton's _Paradise Lost_ to get Aziraphale to stop looking at him like he was Evil Incarnate.

Which he was – in a way – or he was supposed to be, but that wasn't the point.

They both knew he was rubbish at it.

*

Long story short: his plan miserably failed, Aziraphale's good will laboriously won back by means of bribery, Crowley was back feeding the ducks at the pond in St. James's Park.

Just him, the ducks, and the KGB agents. _Home._ And... well, it went without saying of course, but-

“You're early.”

Crowley didn't turn to look. He didn't need to.

“Evil never sleeps.”

He could feel Aziraphale smile at that.

“You always sleep, dear boy.”

“... yeah, it's nice.”

Crowley heard rustling, and one second later Aziraphale was in front of him smiling, waving a crumpled paper bag that smelled simply _divine_. No pun intended.

“Croissants,” Crowley said. “From that fancy bakery in Kensington I like.”

“I was in the neighbourhood.”

“No, you weren't.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes.

“Just eat,” he said, pushing the bag at him, trying and failing not to appear too proud of himself.

Crowley laughed and took the bag, and Aziraphale smiled.

And that right there. Wasn't that – this, _them_ , their little pond, which would always come first no matter what – what they had been trying to say all along?

So there wasn't a way or a right time to express what they were to each other and to the world, what they had finally accepted they had become. So what?

That was a thing too. There was even a word for it.

_What was the word again?_

… Ineffable.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried my best with the language but I might have missed some things. Sorry about that. x


End file.
